1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cushion pad structure for an installation tool, and more particularly, to a cushion pad structure for a carpet installation tool.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, carpets or rugs lying on a floor need to be tightened and smoothed over the surface of the floor, and should not exhibit wrinkles or raised so as to avoid trip and fall type accidents or injuries.
Additionally, many carpets and rugs present pattern matching problems, which may arise from the pattern in the carpet or rug itself, or with another pattern in the environment, such as patterns on walls or furniture appear uncoordinated. However, while it is sometimes impossible to re-install the entire carpet, it may be possible to make sectional adjustments.
When carpet installation is being performed along the edges of the walls or in corners, since the technician is standing on the carpet, he or she is unable to pull on the carpet, and so a carpet installation tool is utilized to finish the installation.
The carpet installation tool is used to perform sectional adjustments, or to assist with installation along the edges of walls and in corner sections. Therefore, such carpet installation tools are very important for completing carpet installation. Carpet installation tools also have the additional advantages of being small sized, light in weight, portable, reasonably priced, etc., and so are very popular.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows a prior art carpet installation tool in use. As shown in the drawing, a carpet installation tool 9 comprises a cushion pad 95, a connecting arm 92 and a claw disk 94. One end of the connecting arm 92 is connected to the cushion pad 95, and another end is connected to the claw disk 94. The claw disk 94 has a plurality of claws 941 that are turned down and forward. The claws 941 are used for digging into the lower layer of the carpet 82 and grabbing the surface layer of the carpet 82 to enhance the traction between the carpet installation tool 9 and the carpet 82. In usage of the carpet installation tool 9, as shown in FIG. 1, a technician needs to get down on one or both knees to use the knee 81 to push upon the cushion pad 95; consequently, the impulse force is transferred to the claw disk 94 via the connecting arm 92, and the claws 941 apply the force to the carpet 82. Of course, the technician may also stand and kick the cushion pad 95 with his or her heel to achieve the same results.
Installation using the carpet installation tool completely relies on the impulse force from the technician's knee or heel. However, this impulse force must sometimes be as high as 3000 NT, which is equal to the weight of 4 to 5 adults. Additional, the carpet installation tool may be used very frequently by the technician, which might cause temporary or sustained or even permanent chronic injury to the knee or ankle joints of the technician. According to the statistics research from the U.S. NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) department, the odds of a technician in this field having a knee or ankle injury is 108 times higher than for other people, and the actual number might even be significantly higher than this. Therefore, there are many technicians in this field that have stopped working because of injuries to knee or ankle joints.
To protect knee and ankle joints of a technician, and to efficiently transfer the impulse force, the hardness of the cushion pad must be carefully calculated to provide an optimum balance. Softer cushion pads provide better protection for knee and ankle joints, but do not efficiently transfer the impulse force; on the other hand, harder cushion pads directly and efficiently transfer the impulse force, but they also create larger reaction forces to knee and ankle joints, which cause unnecessary injury.
In the prior art, most of the inside layer of the cushion pad of the carpet installation tool is made of natural rubber, or other suitable plastic material, which is a single material that may be a foam or some other material type, and used as the main buffering structure for the impulse force; the inside layer is covered with a harder rubber.
It is desirable to provide a cushion pad structure for an installation tool to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.